[Osteopathy for chronic pain after breast cancer surgery: A monocentric randomised study]. / Étude randomisée monocentrique évaluant l'efficacité de l'ostéopathie dans la prise en charge des douleurs chroniques après chirurgie mammaire en oncologie.

Twenty-five to 65% of patients suffer from chronic pain after breast cancer. The treatment combines analgesic drugs and psychophysical techniques. HYPOTHESIS: Osteopathy improves the control of pain and the quality of life of patients. METHODS: This randomized prospective single center study allocated patients to the initiation of a standard analgesic treatment exclusively (arm A) or associated to osteopathy (arm B) between from 1 to 12months after surgery. MAIN OBJECTIVE: Intensity of pain (VAS at three months [j90]). SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: Pain (VAS) at 6 and 12 months, analgesic consumption, anxiety/depression (HADS), and Quality of life (QLQ-C30). Eighty patients were planned to observe a 2-point difference in VAS (5% bilateral alpha, 90% power). RESULTS: Twenty-eight patients (A: 14; B: 14, median age 50 years) were included from April 2011 to February 2014; the study was stopped due to a too slow recruitment. No difference in the VAS pain score between arms was observed at j90 (P=0.258), nor at 6 and 12 months. At j90, the HADS depression score was reduced in arm B (P=0.049). Improvement in the overall score of quality of life (P=0.015), and reduced pain sub-score (P=0.021) were observed at j90 in arm B. DISCUSSION: Patients are strongly seeking complementary therapies. Few studies exist. Our study has encountered major recruitment difficulties therefore limiting the interpretation of the results. Despite the absence of difference in the main objective, some other scores (QOL, depression) are noteworthy in favor of osteopathy. Further multicentric studies are needed.

Production and characterization of bioaerosols for model validation in spacecraft environment.

This study aimed to evaluate the suitability of two bioaerosol generation systems (dry and wet generation) for the aerosolization of microorganisms isolated from the International Space Station, and to calibrate the produced bioaerosols to fulfill the requirements of computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) validation. Concentration, stability, size distribution, agglomeration of generated bioaerosol and deposition of bioaerosols were analyzed. In addition, the dispersion of non-viable particles in the air was studied. Experiments proved that wet generation from microbial suspensions could be used for the production of well-calibrated and stabile bioaerosols for model validation. For the simulation of the natural release of fungal spores, a dry generation method should be used. This study showed that the used CFD model simulated the spread of non-viable particles fairly well. The mathematical deposition model by Lai and Nazaroff could be used to estimate the deposition velocities of bioaerosols on surfaces, although it somewhat underestimated the measured deposition velocities.